Ridley fell in step beside Blackwood and together they walked down to the water. There had been no more firing for some time, and Blackwood guessed that Lessard’s men had observed the gunboat’s arrival and were now waiting to see what they intended to do.
Ridley watched the marines scrambling into the boats. ‘A lot of men could die if things go wrong.’
Blackwood wiped his eyes and throat. ‘A lot have already. So let’s get started, shall we?’
Smithett, who was close behind him, bared his teeth in a mournful grin. The captain had put
him
, in his place and no mistake.
‘Shove off forrard!’ The boat’s coxswain held up his fist. ‘As you were! Belay that order!’ He watched despairingly as the marine second lieutenant ran the last few feet and vaulted into the boat.
Blackwood regarded his half-brother and waited for an explanation.
Harry took a deep breath as the boat gathered way. ‘Major Fynmore ordered me to liaise between both detachments once
we have landed, sir.’ He beamed under Blackwood’s gaze. ‘And of course, sir, you may need the use of my hat again?’
Blackwood looked at the bustling activity in the other boats as the blue-jackets swarmed aboard with their weapons and prepared to follow astern. Each boat mounted a bow-gun, and there was a lieutenant in command of each craft. Both flagship and frigate must have been stripped of everyone except for midshipmen and ancient warrant officers, he thought. As well they might. It was not merely impatience which had brought Monkey ashore in a hated steam vessel. He knew better than anyone that his reputation was at stake. He wondered how Captain Ackworthy was feeling about it. Sir Geoffrey’s shocked and terrified niece in his care, the flagship denuded of lieutenants and a large part of her complement, all might be compensated in his eyes just by getting rid of his admiral for a few hours.
It was barely a few feet to climb aboard the gunboat and in no time the restricted upper deck seemed filled with marines and their weapons.
Blackwood joined the
Norseman
’s commander by the wheel and then he turned to face his brother.
‘Report to Mr Quartermain, he is second in command. Then join M’Crystal down aft.’
Harry faced him stubbornly. ‘Out of danger, you mean? Like the hill at the mission. I’m not a child, Philip, not any more.’
Blackwood smiled grimly. ‘Just do as I tell you.’
Harry touched his hat. ‘Yes,
sir.
’
Clank . . . clank . . . clank . . . the anchor cable was already hove short. Somewhere below his feet a bell clanged and the two motionless paddles began to revolve, slowly at first, and then as the anchor rose dripping from the river with ever increasing power. Coal dust gritted between his teeth, and he could feel the hot air from the boiler-room like wind off a desert.
Commander Ridley was calling orders to his helmsmen and quartermaster as the gunboat forged out into deeper water, and Blackwood saw the two mortars were already
manned and pointing their fat snouts towards the shore. Quartermain seemed to have forgotten his first nervousness and with the prospect of more action was giving separate instructions to the sergeants and corporals who would lead the attack.
‘Mr Pooley! Slow ahead, if you please, or we shall leave the boats too far astern!’
Blackwood watched the paddles thrashing at the water. They were not massively heavy like
Satyr
’s, but appeared to tread delicately on the surface like the legs of a gnat.
But to Ridley, her young commander, she was everything, greater possibly even than
Audacious
was to Ackworthy.
There was a new crispness in Ridley’s tone as he called to his second in command, ‘She moves well, Mr Pooley.’ Their eyes met. ‘Hoist battle ensigns, if you please.’
The gunboat’s wash disturbed some thick reeds and Blackwood saw part of a shattered boat, mercifully capsized among them. Perhaps Netten and his terrible face was still trapped inside, or maybe, like the girl’s dead father, had already been devoured by crocodiles.
He raised his eyes as the White Ensigns broke from
Norseman
’s two small masts, and tried to recognize his own feelings at this particular moment. Death or glory, Pynmore had said, too much pride.
He looked again at his men as they took their positions beneath the gunboat’s bulwark.
I am proud of them at least.
Smithett leaned forward. ‘Sir?’
‘Nothing.’ Blackwood smiled tightly. He had not realized he had spoken aloud.
Then he thought of the girl who was aboard the flagship, protected now and yet more vulnerable to the eyes and unspoken questions. She would soon forget him, perhaps she had erased him already from her tortured mind, if only to save her sanity. Sir Geoffrey Slade would do his best to shield her, she . . . his thoughts came to a dead stop as a seaman shouted, ‘
Hill
, starboard bow, sir!
Enemy in sight!
’
‘Bring her round two points to starboard, Mr Pooley!’ Ridley had to shout as two of the concealed cannon banged out from the far end of the ridge. ‘Keep as close to the shore as you can.’
He turned, squinting in the noon sunlight as twin waterspouts shot skywards on the far bank. He knew the cannon had no chance of hitting the gunboat as yet. They were too high on the ridge and probably protected by earthworks to make them invisible.
Blackwood also watched the fall of shot. The river was deep and powerful for the most part with occasional sand-bars and swaying reeds to betray the other dangers. It must have taken hundreds of King Zwide’s people to haul and manhandle those massive guns up to the ridge. Was he there too, watching the approaching gunboat perhaps, or with his daughter who had spared their lives, even traded her own for Davern Seymour’s?
The gunners would know they could not depress their muzzles enough to straddle
Norseman
’s bustling approach. They were probably firing to build up their own morale and to warn off the attackers at the same time.
There was a solitary explosion and a great gout of flame and blasted bushes from the opposite bank. M’Crystal had been right the first time. Three large cannon backed up an army of killers who had nothing to lose but their lives. In battle or on Her Majesty’s gibbets, it would make no odds to them.
He glanced along the crouching section of marines, their muskets protruding over the bulwarks and some makeshift sandbags like uneven teeth. Lieutenant Quartermain, his sword unsheathed, a bugler, a mere child, beside him. Sergeant Quintin, chewing on his chin strap as he watched his men and the nearest paddle as it thrashed up the spray like rain.
Blackwood said, ‘That’s where the launch was hit. Right on the bend.’
Ridley lowered his telescope and grunted. ‘Mr Pooley, pass the word to engage the moment we are up to that cairn of rocks!’ To Blackwood he added, ‘I have two boats towing
astern for your men. I’ll do what I can to give you covering fire.’
Two more bangs heralded another fall of shot. Water rose and fell languidly, clear of the other bank this time.
A midshipman wrote busily on a slate and hung it near the wheel. Would anyone ever read what he had recorded, Blackwood wondered? He thought of Midshipman Ward who had died trying to protect the black princess, the way she had held him with apparent tenderness as his blood had fallen on her.
Ridley said abruptly, ‘The other boats can act on their own for a while. Mr Pooley, tell the Chief to give me full speed ahead!’
The slender paddles churned at the river and a long wash rolled away to rock the nearest boats and break across the bank like a small wave.
It was a tense yet exciting moment, the low hull shaking as if to fall apart, the officers and seamen standing about their weapons more like spectators than people about to fight.
Blackwood heard a solitary bang and waited as the shot fanned above the foremast and burst in the water well abeam. He could picture the gunners on the ridge, working with crude tackle and handspikes to train their weapons towards the small, thrashing vessel below them.
Some of the seamen were waving their hats and cheering, it was the madness which no one seemed able to control.
Both mortars were squatting on their mountings, and Blackwood saw
Norseman
’s gunner gesturing to his men to adjust their elevation so that they would not be caught out when the order to fire was given.
Blackwood tried to ignore the preparations on the crowded deck, and looked instead at the oncoming bend in the river where Lessard’s long-boat had dropped a stream-anchor.
Soon now. Very soon. He glanced astern and saw the flotilla of boats pulling strongly up river, their work made even harder by the armed blue-jackets who were packed in the hulls like beans in a box.
Bang!
Blackwood flinched as the sunlight shimmered in a haze of pale smoke and a massive shot ripped across the water like a sounding dolphin. They had the range, and their guns would bear.
Ridley snapped, ‘Closer inshore, Quartermaster! Boatswain’s mate! Put a leadsman in the chains immediately!’ He blinked as two shots roared down from the ridge and hurled shredded water high over the forecastle.
A seaman with a lead and line scampered forward to begin sounding as
Norseman
edged even closer to the land. He ducked violently as another shot hammered into the river, the shock of the explosion hitting the hull like a muffled fist.
‘Open fire with the mortars!’
The gunner must have been watching his captain like a hawk. Each heavy mortar fired separately, the deck jolting as smoke drifted aft from the black muzzles.
Blackwood thought he saw where the charges exploded, and counted seconds while he tried to gauge the effect of the shots. But the hidden battery crashed out again, the pair first, and moments later the third one. The latter was more to the left, he thought, directly above the bend where the river narrowed.
The gunboat’s little six-pounder fired sharply, and some of the younger marines who were peering over their defences at the ridge gasped with alarm and probably imagined they had been hit. Several grinned sheepishly as M’Crystal bellowed, ‘Och, who’d want to shoot at
you
then, Privare Morrison!’
Around the bend it was another cable or so before the river divided into twin forks. In the centre of one fork Zwide’s village was sited perfectly, with only the easterly approach undefended by water. Lessard had chosen well.
Suddenly Blackwood knew that the next shot was going to strike. Sixth sense, fear or instinct, he did not know or care.
‘
Keep down!
’
The crash when it came was violent and terrible and must have hit the hull just forward of the starboard paddle. Blackwood heard it smashing through the deck below as if it would
never stop, the splintering destruction of wood and metal which would kill or maim anyone between decks. He realized with a start that he had not even heard the gun which had fired.
‘Mortars, Mr Pooley! Mark that one down!’
The starboard mortar recoiled and belched fire like a crouching dragon, the shot tearing through a line of trees and flinging up fronds and stones as it exploded.
Ridley snapped, ‘Report damage!’
From forward the leadsman yelled, ‘By the mark
two
!’
‘Starboard your helm, Quartermaster!’ Ridley glanced at Blackwood, his eyes glazed with concentration. ‘I know she’s shallow, but I don’t want her to drive aground!’
Blackwood saw reeds and sand spewing from the paddle nearest the land, and heard someone give a sigh as the gunboat moved out a few more yards.
‘By the mark three!’
Blackwood wiped the dust from his eyes and studied the shore. Time to go soon.
He sought out the lieutenant and shouted, ‘First section aft, Mr Quartermain!’
The marines hurried towards the quarterdeck, their bodies bent almost double as they made their way to the boats which were towing astern.
Ridley said between his teeth, ‘That overhang will offer some cover. I’ll reduce to dead slow.’ He raised his telescope again as both mortars fired together. ‘I wish you luck.’
Blackwood nodded to Sergeant Quintin and another section came pounding aft, eyes averted as a shot tore overhead and brought down some signal halliards like broken creeper.
‘First boat loaded, sir!’
Blackwood turned and saw Harry staring at him through the drifting smoke. His eyes were wide with excitement and strain, but his voice was steady.
‘Very well, I want –’
He cringed down, pulling Harry with him, as the deck bucked wildly and threw splintered planks and gratings like crude arrows.
As the smoke funnelled through a gaping hole in the deck Blackwood imagined he saw the glint of water, but his ears were still ringing from the explosion and he could barely think. Several men had fallen to the hail of deadly splinters, and only the quartermaster still clung to the gunboat’s double-wheel, his chest heaving in and out as if he had just been saved from drowning. Pooley, the first lieutenant, sat drooping against the bulwarks, his bloodied fingers grasping a great jagged splinter in his chest, his eyes misting over as his life ran into the scuppers.
One of the mortars had been upended, pinning down one of its crew, and Blackwood saw a man’s body picked up by the whirling paddle and then smashed down into the frothing water. Blackwood saw a line snaking after the crushed corpse and guessed it was the leadsman.
As his hearing came back he heard shouted commands, screams and pitiful whimpers as the wounded groped at the legs of Ridley’s men as they ran to repair the damage.
The foremast had gone and trailed over the side like a sea-anchor until axes hacked it free.
Ridley rose from the deck and shook himself like an angry dog.
‘Slow ahead, Mr Poo . . .’ He saw his dead lieutenant and yelled, ‘Mr Thomas, take charge there!’
The remaining mortar continued to fire, the gunner unaware that he was splashed with blood from the other crew.
The paddles slowed reluctantly and Blackwood said, ‘Come on, Harry. Our turn.’ He watched him searchingly. ‘All right?’